Offense:
22

Defense:
0

Utility:
8

Introduction

I'd like to start of with a fair warning: this is NOT a noob-guide. It WILL take skill to play with it, the build makes you vulnerable and if you can't pull off the tactics described in here you will be chanceless.

The reason I came up with this guide is because I like challenging gameplay, I like to be unique and I like to own my opponents. Many of you just build your items, rush in and rely completely on the build. Not me though. I take a look on what my items give me, what my champion give me and how I can use those tools for most efficiency. And this is the result.

With that said I'd like to give you another advice. Don't rush in and shoot shoot shoot. This is not that type of gameplay. If you follow the instructions given and have some brain of your own you will be able to win games with excellent scores. That I garantuee!

Runes

For marks we use flat Magic Penetration. This is great. You do more damage early on. That's that.
We give ourselves a little attack speed aswell. You could swap the seals for armor if you feel like it. Health is also viable. I chose attack speed because we will only have one speedincreasing item in this build.
For glyphs and quintessances we use abilitypower. I'd reccomend flat for both rune slots, since you will have sh!tloads and sh!tloads of AP later on, and your damage will be incredible. Therefore I reason that you wont need any extra.

This rune setup is solely for making you a force to recon with during early game where you are weak and squishy.

Masteries

A quick walkthrough. Magic Penetration and cooldown reduction are given. We fill all AP talents in Offence to give your early and lategame AP a boost. Make sure to pick the crown talent in offence aswell. Your shrooms are meant to kill escaping and chasing lowhealth opponents, so increased damage to those below 40% health is da shizznit. In Utility we just go for the movement speed increase. You don't want to get within range, because that means you are going to die. We use the viable means to get there, namely reduced death time and reduced time recalling.

Items

Start with Amplifying Tome. You will start out with roughly 50 AP. Your Blinding Dart will do threatingly damage to anyone without magic resistance. A Health Potion to get a little sustain against harrassment. This can be traded for a Mana Potion if you got a healer with you on lane or if you really have to harrass someone to death. It is situational. If you can't decide which one you need, go with health pot. Better safe than sorry!

Alot of people cry when I buy Mejai's Soulstealer but I honestly don't give a dime. This item is pro, and when you reach full stacks your shrooms will do brutal 1300 damage each. So yeah, it is viable. The whole reason for buying it is that you will not die. Nope, 3-5 times a game tops unless you screw something up. Or your team, for that part. You will be on safe distance, running if your opponent gives chase in teamfights, blinding, slowing and dealing massive AoE, protected and safe by your team. If you can't keep at least 6 stacks on it you should let go and buy something with more AP instead.

Everything up to Lich Bane is core build. From there you can choose to get Zhonya's Hourglass if the enemy team have alot of AD, Will of the Ancients for spellvamp and more AP for a better sustain or Void Staff if the enemy team have alot of Magic Resistance. I seldom go for magic resistance since I rarely get in focus of the mages. If they have a majority of AP I consider it, but you often only have to worry about the AD carry and your spells becoming ineffective because of high amount magic resistance.

Skill Sequence

The only time I don't start with Blinding Dart is when I go solo top against Garen. For him, I use Toxic Shot to wear away his health and keeping his passive from triggering. I with it I only have to shoot him every 11 secound or so and that works great. You want to max Blinding Dart first since it is your heavy burst. If you do great you can hit as hard as Nidalee does with her spear, wearing away 80% health of a squishy! In normal games I do at least 40% of total health in damage towards people with no magic resistance when Blinding Dart is rank 3.

Next we max out Toxic Shot. Adds the damage you loose from not having alot of attack speed with initial damage and a 4 secound damage over time venom. This ability is the whole reason why we wont buy alot of attack speed items!

You should definitly take Move Quick when you hit level 4. I wont hear anything else. Teemo is squishy and you need more movement speed to be able to kite and escape.

The ultimate is your offense, defense and pretty much everything. Noxious Trap deal alot of damage and scale fairly well with AP. These little growable nuisance should be all around the map. Speaking of map, I included one with the best places to put shrooms. Best as in "common escape routes" and "frequently traveled", but also as in "warding against ganks and enemy drake/baron steal".

And aside from the spots I so thoughtfully marked on the map you should use your mushrooms to ward brush and do heavy damage if a melee approaches you. You can also use them for slowing opponents. Don't worry if they got Oracle's. Run into the jungle where the paths are narrow and place a shroom. Either your chasers take heavy damage and a slow or they stop to kill the shroom. Either way you gain a head start and will most likely get away.

Summoner Spells

I prefer Ghost and Ignite. You could swap Ignite for Exhaust if you already have 2-3 Ignite on your team. Ignite is such a useful spell. The -50% healing is the vital part, the damage over time is a bonus. Whenever you face Dr. Mundo, Warwick, Irelia, Fiora or any other heavy lifegaining champion or lane against an AD-healsupport setup this spell will be golden.

I started to play Teemo with Flash but I didn't find it quite as effective as a Ghost. Ghost counters Flash and other champions with Ghost. They pop their you pop yours. Nothing lost nothing gained in regards of distance between you. If they flash you will be able to catch up the escapee and finish him off, hopefully. Ghost is also a better alternative than [[Flash] because tthen you can kite/chase more effectively, without closing or opening any distance between you.

These two I reccomend. Heal is good since you are squishy, but not so effective after early game. Surge give you attack speed, which you don't need, and ability power for like 10 seconds. For a damage increase I would rather take Ignite since it reduce healing effects aswell.

Farming

Last hit minions, try to harrass without taking damage yourself. The main thing is to get farm, second is to take no damage and third is to harrass. You got no sustain except for health pots and you don't want to travel back to base alot. So play safe, gain farm and grow. If you can score a kill: do it. but early game you are vulnerable both to lane opponent and to ganks. You are a hunter, not the prey. Let no one sneak up on you.

When you have rank 2 in Noxious Trap you can use your mushrooms to farm minion waves in one blow. If you see a giant creep wave you go there and extinguish their flame of life with your mushroom. You can just run away and wait for them to die while you go help out in a teamfight or whatever.

You should have alot of assists from your mushroom traps. Even kills. Remember to put he majority of your mushrooms in the enemies escape routes. These are all the narrow paths leading to the jungle. Also inside the jungle.

How to place the mushroom traps

The circle you see when you place a shroom is the activation radius for the trap. The explosion hits a little bit further from this, but the shrooms wont explode unless the enemy step within the circle. Find narrow paths and place the mushrooms so that the circle cover up most of it. The places marked on the map above shows you where mushrooms can completely cover escape routes in combination with which escape routes and paths are frequently traveled.

Why escape routes? Sure, you could place them anywhere and laugh your head off when the enemy team carry have to recall to regenerate. But it is way better to take their players out of the game for the duration of 30-60 secounds plus another 10-30 secounds to get to the fighting ground than to just have them recall. And don't forget about the bonus gold! Gold makes you stronger, makes you faster, makes you more venomous. And the more potent your poison is, the more gold you make from kills and assists. That's why we try to finish off wounded enemies or at least slowing them so the team can catch up to them and yield you some assist money on the run.

Summary

Teemo is a nuisance. He's no warhungry berserker that throw's himself into the fray. He is a bloodthirsty, cunning hunter that spread death through deserter's ranks. If there is a teamfight, remain close so you can blind or take out the carrys while the enemy team are focusing someone in your team. It'll be a quick hit, trust me. Then you run away. You should be ready with Ghost and Noxious Trap so you can chase down survivors and prepare escape routes for your team if the fight isn't turned in your favour. But don't jump into the fray. You will be the main target since you are squishy and do the most damage on the team consistantly. Stay out, fire some poison darts and blinds to get assists, hunt down their survivors and prepare slowing deathtraps to help your team escape if necessary. That's your job.

Thank you for reading, and if you have questions you post them as comments. I will answear and add to the guide. Thank you in advance for contributing!

A different playstyle than what you are used to

So yeah, as you can see my build lack all forms of sustain. The reason for this will be explained here.

I think AP Teemo differs from AD Teemo in the way of playing. As AD you have to be present in the teamfights to deal damage. You are going to take damage so you need Frozen Mallet and other tanky items. But not while playing AP. As AP you do the most damage with your Blinding Shot and your Noxious Trap. Therefore you don't have to stand in the middle and risk getting focused. And because of that you don't have to waste item slots on sustain. Instead we go all out on AP to max out the damage.

I think this guide needs a video to show you how it is done, and I will get back to you with that. But until then my explaination will be this: stay safe and play like a coward. The concept is not entirely unfamiliar. Twitch, Evelynn and other squishies work the same way. Wait until the team engage and then dish out a ton of damage. Pretty simple.

You can also combine mushrooms and blinding shot with your passive to ambush an enemy jungler or someone running around alone. Place shrooms, wait for someone to step on them and open with Blinding Shot. Then just keep shooting for a secound or two and they'll be dead.